Digital rights management (“DRM”) is seeing more widespread use to control access, use, and distribution of digital media content such as software, music, ring tones, video (e.g., television, music videos and movies), games and interactive entertainment, and other digital data. One of the reasons DRM was developed is that digital media content, unlike traditional analog media content, has the potential to be copied over and over without any loss of quality in subsequent copies. In addition, the costs to copy digital media content and distribute it over networks such as the Internet are very small compared with the costs to create the content. Peer-to-peer file sharing over the Internet has become very common as a result. In instances when the shared files include DRM-protected or copyrighted works, peer-to-peer sharing without an associated DRM license or copyright is generally considered unlawful in most parts of the world.
DRM typically enforces some restrictions on the duration of time or number of times a media file may be played on a device, or may limit the number of devices that may be used for playback. Some DRM methodologies, such as those currently used with digital versatile disc (“DVD”) limit use of the media content to playback only without authorization or enablement for copies to be made. DRM is also being used with some media content sold on compact disc (“CD”) as well. Whatever particular rights or limits are provided, DRM generally enables digital media content providers to protect and manage their investments in creating the content. Such protection and management is often viewed as being reasonably necessary to ensure that a wide variety of high quality media content continues to be available to consumers.
DRM-protection is also applied to downloadable media content such as music and videos that are sold by online electronic storefronts. The DRM license associated with such content generally restricts the number of devices (such as personal computers) that can play the media content. In addition, the DRM license often restricts the number of copies that may be written to a storage medium, for example, by being “burned” to an optical disc such as a CD or DVD.
Under most current DRM methodologies, when media content is copied to a storage medium such as a writable CD or DVD, the resulting copies are no longer DRM-protected. Users can make an unlimited number of copies of the media content from the storage medium. In addition, once DRM-protection is removed, users are also free to rip (i.e., convert) the media files on the storage medium to a compressed and unprotected format such as MP3 (Moving Pictures Expert Group Audio Layer 3) which makes it easy to improperly distribute copyrighted media over networks such as the Internet.
While current DRM methodologies are satisfactory in many applications, they do not cover all situations as effectively as possible. For example, a user may wish to rearrange the play order of DRM-protected media content that is written on a storage medium such an optical disc. That is, a certain group of songs stored on different discs may be desired to be on one specific disc so it can be played at an event such as a party or at a friend's house, etc. Under current DRM schemes, when the user transfers the songs to a new disc to create the desired play order, the DRM protection is removed, even in cases when the user would accept DRM limits placed on the copied media content. Accordingly, it would be desirable to enable a user to move and rearrange DRM-protected media content from storage medium to storage medium without losing the associated DRM protection.